


Under Silent Skies

by Hokuto



Category: Stigma
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Future Fic, Love, M/M, Post-Canon, Present Tense, Sharing a Bed, Slash, Slice of Life, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 17:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stork's never thought about the money running out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Silent Skies

**Author's Note:**

> Stigma is one of my very, very favorite manga, so naturally I have to write long angsty fic about it. XD
> 
> This is of no real relevance, but a while ago I was thinking about Stork and his hair for no particular reason, and it occurred to me that Stork's hair looks kind of like it's in (short) dreads, so now I have this headcanon thing that Stork is multiracial. How this affects the reading of either the original or this fic I don't know, but - well, there you go.
> 
> **ETA 5/24/17:** Was looking over this and fixed a couple little things that bothered me (too many ellipses!).

Stork's never thought about the money running out.

It seems silly, in hindsight, that he never even considered the possibility; it's a big suitcase, sure, and the bills had been tightly packed within, but it doesn't have boundless depths. And he's been careful with it, too, always putting the change back in, sometimes adding a little extra if he'd done odd jobs around wherever, but he's always ended up taking out more than he puts in.

Maybe it would've been enough for a lifetime, if it were just him. But he isn't the only one living off that money.

"I think I need new sneakers," says Tit, sitting on the bed that Stork just paid a week's rent for. "I can feel holes in the toes..." He sticks his foot out, nearly kicking Stork in the knee, and Stork can see him wiggling his toes through a ragged tear in the canvas.

"Sure, kid," Stork says, and that's where almost the last of their money goes, new shoes for Tit; the change and the couple of leftover bills will feed them for the week they're in this town, and that'll be the end of it.

Tit goes off to explore the town, making his way with a thin flexible cane (how much had that been?) and apologizing with a smile if he accidentally hits anyone. He always does this; when he gets hungry he'll come back to Stork and they'll eat while Tit tells him everything he's found and heard. Stork goes back to the inn, and passes by the bar on the ground floor - he'll go down later, have a glass of brandy if they've got it and drink to the memory of a kind lady, but it's too early in the day for that.

In the room he sits on the bed with the suitcase and counts what's left, over and over. The exact amount of change varies a little with the counts, but the overall number is the same every time.

_What did you expect?_ says a familiar mocking voice at the back of his head. _Did you think I'd keep it full from beyond the grave? That as I mouldered into the dirt my bones and flesh would become money for you? That my corpse would feed you and your brat?_

"No, I never thought that," Stork says, because he never did think. He's such a fool, no sense at all. He isn't even that old, surely, just into his thirties at most, but he feels ancient now as the bills crumple in his boney brown hands. This is Stork, methodically counting out their lives on a bed in a cheap inn, a tired washed-out wreck of a man in his early thirties.

That night when Stork's about to fall asleep Tit says, "I really like this town. Can we stay here for a while?"

"Sure, kid, I paid for a week."

"I meant longer than that," says Tit. "Like a lot longer. It's super cool here and everyone's really nice..."

"Well, we can figure it out in a week," Stork says. This is also par for the course with Tit; he always loves a town on the first day, but in a couple of days he'll be tired of it, ready to move on.

Stork doesn't know how they'll manage when they do. He closes his eyes and tries not to fall back into a colorless world.

* * *

Tit's known for a long time that the money's getting low. He's usually the one carrying the suitcase, after all, and it's hard to miss how light it's gotten, the little hesitation in Stork's voice before he agrees to pay for anything. Stork hasn't said anything, but that's Stork for you, never saying anything until he absolutely has to.

When he hears Stork's breathing slow into sleep, he puts his hand up on the pillow and carefully feels his way until his fingers brush against the edges of Stork's hair, rough and matted and wiry.

He works hard to remember colors, but it's been ten years and he's not sure anymore how accurate his memory is; just enough to pick out shirts that don't sound hideous when Stork describes them, really. He knows he's forgotten some of the finer and odder shades - puce and chartreuse, what are those, even? Stork must be making them up - but he doesn't care about that. The important colors he remembers. Cream and blue and gold, kingfisher's colors; the colors of Stork, green and lavender and shades of brown, and the white threads in his hair. There's probably more white there now that Tit can't see.

_I wish you'd just tell me_, he thinks. _You're not alone, I'm here too..._ The distance from his fingertips to Stork across the pillow feels boundless, and Tit's still figuring out how to cross it. It's just _silly_ that Stork won't talk to him about this; Tit's not a little kid anymore, he's twenty, he can help, and even when Tit was a kid Stork had always been honest with him.

It feels like something's going wrong, like when the stuffed kingfisher's feathers started falling away, leaving patches of bare skin where Tit could feel the sawdust underneath. He'd tried glueing the feathers he could find back on but they wouldn't stay on right, they kept sticking up every which way and felt stiff and sticky and wrong. Stork had fixed it, smoothed out the feathers and done something to get rid of the excess glue, and if the kingfisher hadn't felt exactly the same it was still good enough. But if Tit hadn't talked to him it wouldn't have gotten fixed.

He finds again the park he found on the first day, a little patch of soft grass under his feet and a comfortable bench. There's no sun to feel anymore, but Tit still likes to be outside as much as he can, with fresh air and eternal hope, listening for a bird's wings in the sky.

Someone sits beside him - an old lady, he thinks, by the rustle of skirts and slight creaking of joints. He hears a paper bag crinkling, and the faint sound of something scattered on the ground; he turns his head towards it and says, "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Feedin' the birds," she says.

Tit's jaw drops. "There are birds around here? Real birds?"

"'Course not," she says, sniffing. "There's been no birds since the war, you're old enough to know that. But I been feedin' the birds in this park since I was younger 'n you, I'm too old to quit now. Never know, I could live to see the birds come back, and they'll be hungry when they do, I imagine..."

"That's really great," Tit says. "I've been looking for birds too! Well, me and Stork... We've been to lots of places and haven't found them yet, but I know they're still out there somewhere."

"Good," she says, "that's good - I like to see a boy with some hope around here. Seems some days like everyone's given up..."

They talk for a while, about birds and the town and Dr. Mei's life, and after she goes home to her lab Tit stays on the bench a little longer to think and listen to the empty sky.

With the money gone, hope and each other are all they've got. Tit thinks that might be just enough.

* * *

Tit's gone most of the time, learning the town, and Stork makes himself go out too, a bit, because it seems like something he ought to do. Mostly he hangs out in the town's other bar, smoking and stretching out a single cheap drink. It feels like a kind of home - not from any comfort of the bar particularly, but he's spent a lot of time in bars. They were such a part of Stalk's world; now they're part of his, too.

At least no one's recognized him in this place. The farther he and Tit travel the less often that happens, someone calling him a different name, but it does happen once in a while. Stork's grown to hate it. He doesn't remember perfectly everything that happened under those other names - how could he? It's been years, and they were damaged memories to begin with, stained with blood and smoke - but he remembers enough, and every name feels like lines of ink cutting into his skin, marking him the man he doesn't want to be.

_It'd suit you,_ says the voice in his head, and Stork imagines long fingers stroking his neck, on the left side, where his butterfly would go.

He goes back to the room and lies down. They've got one more night here - how the time goes when there's a deadline for your life, flying with its wings dragging in the dust - and Stork hasn't thought of a single thing he can do.

Tit comes back late that night, his face flushed from the cool weather; Stork turns his face away while Tit changes into pajamas and chatters about the people he's met today, the really delicious-smelling bakery he found, how he ended up having dinner with other people tonight when they'd invited him to join them...

"- and I think I really do want to stay here, Stork," he says, smiling and running his hand along the dresser to guide himself to the bed. "It's a good place, and I really like traveling but it'd be nice to have a place to come back to, too..."

"What about your birds?" Stork asks, rolling back over.

Tit says, "I thought about that, actually! I think that if there are any birds left, they'll breed, right? So eventually there'll be too many for the place where they are now, and they'll have to spread out to look for food, and then they'll be everywhere again - including here. And we could always go out and look for them, but come back here..."

"Ah. Well, then, staying here would be nice," Stork says. "If we had the money."

Tit's quiet for a moment while he settles into bed, and then says, "I know we don't have any left."

"Oh." _You really don't think, do you?_ says Stalk. _The brat's blind, but he's sharp; of course he noticed._

"But it's okay, I have a plan," says Tit, sitting up again. "I've been talking to the people at the library - there's a really big library here - and they used to have a blind librarian, so all the books are marked with these special codes you can read with your fingers, and the card catalogues too. They keep it up because the power goes out a lot and it's easier to find stuff in the dark, and for the other blind people in town, too. It's really easy to learn, Nemu said - she's the head librarian, she's super nice, that's who I had dinner with... She said they even have a bunch of books in Braille! And one of the assistant librarians is quitting so he can look after his daughter while his wife goes back to work, so they're looking for help... So, you know, I could work there, and then we could stay."

"Maybe you should stay here, then," Stork says. It's a perfect solution, isn't it? Stork can get by on his own easily enough, go back to what he used to do - hurt people, use his body, kill for money. Tit will stay here, work with books, make friends, meet a girl, get married, while Stork drifts at the edges of civilization; Tit will grow old, playing with his grandchildren and telling them stories about birds, and Stork will be dead.

He can see that future before he even finishes speaking, wishes he couldn't, wishes he hadn't said the beginning of that future because he can see on Tit's face that Tit is thinking about that future too; he jams his fist in his mouth before any more of it can get out, he doesn't want that road, he _doesn't_.

"I don't want to stay here without you," Tit says, his voice hurt. "Stork, why would you say that? You wouldn't say anything about the money either, I was really worried - what's wrong?"

Stork doesn't know, he has no idea what he's thinking, all he knows is that in his head Stalk is laughing while Stork himself does by accident what Stalk was trying to do ten years ago. He sits up and takes his knuckles out of his mouth and says it, "I don't know, I just don't - it's no good, I don't know what to do..."

"Then let me help," says Tit, and hugs Stork. "Please, let me help... I can't do everything by myself, I know that, but you don't have to either - I'm not a kid anymore."

And he leans into the hug a little more and kisses Stork on the mouth.

For a moment it's perfect, in a clumsy teenage way; then Stork breaks it off, pulls back, saying "No - kid, this isn't right, that's not - that's not why I -" _Isn't it? He was such a sweet little boy, what a waste..._

_Shut up_, Stork says to his head.

"I know," Tit's saying, resting his cheek against Stork's. "Stork's a really good guy, I know that. I want to stay here with you and be a family together, and I love you. The money's not important - that's what you said before, right? We can find our own way."

"I guess you're right," Stork says, helpless; he's always been helpless against Tit, against the golden hope Tit never loses. He leans back against the wall and Tit leans with him, keeping close. He's gotten so big - barely an inch short of Stork's height, and a little broader across the shoulders. When did he get that big? Stork doesn't remember.

He sighs and puts his arms around Tit, and without thinking he lets his hand slide down Tit's side, until he can feel the rough round scar on his palm catch on the edge of another old wound. Stork's talked about his scars before, as much as he could bear to, but he's never had the courage to ask Tit how he got his, how a boy could end up with a scar on his side bigger than Stork's hand.

There's a hitch in Tit's breath at the touch, but all he says is, "Please, Stork. Don't leave..."

"I won't," says Stork.

This time he kisses Tit first, and they can feel themselves smiling against each other's lips.

* * *

Tit runs his hand along the shelf, feeling the codes on the bindings. A26.22B, A26.22F, A26.22K, A26.22I - he pauses and switches those two - A26.23A, A26.23C, A26.23D, A26.23G - he stops again, and reaches for the cart's top shelf, where A26.23E is sitting.

It's late, and the library is quiet; Tit can even hear Nemu at the front desk, talking to someone. "I'm sorry, Dr. Mei," she says, "there's still been no word from the publishing company about whether that journal's going to be restarted... We did just get a new title in from S-Books, a collection of articles about the newest findings in atmospheric studies - would you like me to get it for you?"

"Yes, thanks," Dr. Mei says. "And tell that company to hurry up, how can anyone keep up with anything without a decent journal?"

Nemu laughs, and as Tit reshelves A27.3I he can hear her walking back among the shelves, pausing at his. "Hey, Tit," she says, "your partner's here - why don't you go on home? I can take care of the rest of those once I've got this book for Dr. Mei..."

Tit grins and says, "Thanks! See you tomorrow!"

He passes by the front desk and says hi to Dr. Mei, who tells him to come back to the park for lunch sometime; he crosses the empty lobby, reaches the doors, and says, "Stork?"

"Here," Stork says, and takes Tit's hand. "Ready to go already?"

"Nemu said it was fine," says Tit, "there were just a couple books left, anyway... You're not going to be late for work, are you?"

"My shift's not till later tonight," Stork says. "I have plenty of time. Want to get dinner?"

"Sure, that sounds great," Tit says, leaning on Stork's shoulder as they walk out of the library.

The skies are still silent. For now, Tit's got other things to listen to.

**Author's Note:**

> Stigma, characters, &amp; situations © Minekura Kazuya, of course, and used here purely for fun without profit.


End file.
